They’re eating the dogs and cats. Can you believe some fool actually said that on national television, and said it with a straight face, no less? At least he didn’t say they were using Portland ketchup or homemade fries to go with it. Isn’t that just the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Heck, you may have even seen it yourself.
On top of that, this stand-up comedian was then elected President of the United States. Can you believe that?
Laughter from the audience is acceptable. It was a good delivery. But maybe a little too close to home for some in the crowd.
Well, I can’t get paid as a political commentator, and it doesn’t look like I’ll make it as a comedian either. So what do I do instead?
If I were to toot my own little horn, I’d say that instead of eating my dogs, I do a pretty darn good job of feeding them. You see, I actually love my four-legged critters, and when they get old and die, I die a bit inside myself. So when one of my Golden Retrievers died of cancer at nine , maybe eight or nine years ago now, I went on a mission. A nutrition mission.
Spoiler alert: this isn’t about Putz or politics anymore, so you can leave now if you’re disappointed. It’s about family. Maybe it’s about America too, in its own way, but that’s the last I’ll say on that subject. Promise. Maybe.
We’ve had Jack Russells and Golden Retrievers for a long, long, long time. They pair well together. And the Jack is leaving us any day now, so I’m feeling a bit nostalgic.
But this is about Max, the Golden before, and cancer. After Max died at nine, I started researching dog food, and the rest here is my opinion, not scientific fact.
You cannot pressure-cook gruel until it’s shelf-stable for three-plus years, pour some nutrient slurry over it, and call it food. I don’t give a crap what it says on the label, that stuff is killing our four-legged family members. Check it out, it’s a fact: their lives are getting shorter and shorter. I’ll admit that’s partially due to a lack of overall activity, since American family lifestyles have changed. But if that were the whole reason, why are we living longer?
Long story short: I cook my dogs their food. It’s not scientific, it’s just nutritious. And they still get a high-quality kibble alongside it.
I’ll cover the kibble first. They get kibble for breakfast, why? For their teeth. They need something crunchy to chew on, and a high-quality kibble still has vitamins and minerals added that I haven’t provided myself. Along with breakfast, they get an 8-in-1 vitamin, which I get from Costco, online only, best value I could find.
Now to the piece de resistance. Sounds good, doesn’t it? First, let’s debunk the myths.
Raw food. Dogs only ate raw food because they didn’t know how to make fire and don’t have opposable thumbs. Why do you think they took up with us puny humans, dummy? For that stupid kibble?
Liver, or heart, or whatever other organ meat you can name, forget any diet built on just one thing. Organ meats have lots of iron. Iron is good. Too much iron sinks ships, that’s what cannonballs are made of. Think balanced diet. Think Popeye the Sailor Man. Yep, we’ll come back to him.
All meat, dogs aren’t carnivores by design the way you think, dammit. Then why’s poochie outside eating your grass, dummy? You need a balanced diet. Why wouldn’t you think your loved ones need one too?
Money, the expense, yes, it was expensive to start. But guess what: it’s almost, if not actually, cheaper now to feed my dogs my homemade food than an upper-tier kibble. I’m not talking about super-duper premium, gouge-your-pocketbook stuff, just upper-middle-class kibble. And what I’m making puts to shame the stuff you’re now finding in the “coolers” at the pet store — stuff we couldn’t even afford to eat at our own dinner table. You’d have to be the proud owner of a three-pound foo-foo dog to feed it that hyped-up stuff. Yes, stuff.
I make about six months’ worth at a time and freeze it. I’ll be honest, I fork out a bit of cash all at once, but remember, that’s feeding two, now three, dogs for six months. Nothing is raw. Everything is cooked just enough to kill off any pathogens. No sick puppies around here.
So here’s the ever-changing recipe. Basically it ends up close to a 50/50 meat-to-vegetable ratio, with brown rice to finish. I’ll cover the rice first, since it’s last in the process and I’ll probably forget otherwise. When everything else is done, I’ve got all this water everything’s been parboiled in, full of vitamins and other goodies, just waiting to be poured down the drain. Instead, I pour in about eight to ten cups of brown rice and cook it like any rice, except there’s way more water than usual. They need the carbs, just like we do. Just not a kibble that’s 80% compressed carb, or is that cardboard?
I use a large strainer to scoop the rice out. Simple. Add it to the 200 pounds of yummy dog food we should all be so lucky to have as our own balanced diet.
Second detail not to be overlooked: the chicken is chicken hindquarters, bones and all. Everything I cook gets run through a LEM ¾ HP grinder. Bones and all. The dogs get all the nutrients of bone meal without the danger of bone splinters. You can rub the finished food between your fingers and not detect a single bone fragment. But why do you think bone broth is so expensive?
Chicken bones are incredibly nutrient-dense, calcium, phosphorus, essential minerals like iron, magnesium, and potassium. You don’t eat them whole, but simmering them extracts rich collagen, protein, and amino acids to make a deeply nourishing broth. So why not just grind them up and include everything? They’re already cooked, softened, and digestible.
Okay, the rest you can figure out and scale to your own needs and budget, but here’s my recipe. It’s not cast in stone, availability shifts with the season, farmers markets, canning season. I only do this two and a half times a year, usually buying from the Chef Store (formerly Cash & Carry, I’m sure you’ve got a wholesale food outlet near you) and WinCo. Just ask for the butcher, tell them what you’re doing. They’ll go out of their way for you.
40 pounds chicken hindquarters (Chef Store, comes in a 40-pound frozen package)
2 pork butts, boned out
2 whole beef hearts (I get these at WinCo)
15 pounds beef trimmings or chuck roll
5 pounds beef liver
5 pounds frozen spinach (remember Popeye)
10 pounds green beans
10 pounds peas
5 pounds broccoli
15 pounds beets
15 pounds carrots
15 pounds sweet potato
I didn’t start at this level. First I cleaned out the fridge and freezer, then added this, then that, using a KitchenAid with a grinder attachment. Then I bought a meat grinder at Cabela’s and quickly returned the overheated toy. Settled on a ¾ HP LEM. Then tried this, tried that. I mix it all in a 60-gallon plastic stock tank that lives in the garage, the same one that holds all the misc. bags and storage containers, plus a 36-quart aluminum stock pot, until it’s ready to portion and freeze.
As for my dogs: the old Jack Russell, well, she’s still old, still dying, and still loved. She’s on a special kidney prescription diet now. You do what you can do.
The nine-month-old puppy, 100% mutt, think terrier crossed with an Irish wolfhound, with Muttley’s grin from Dudley Do-Right and the size to match, well, she’s solid. How else to describe her: looks lean, looks thin, weighs a full 50 pounds. Solid. Coat’s fantastic.
But the real proof is the now eight-year-old Golden Retriever, the one whose teeth are fantastic, who’s never needed a cleaning, whose breath never offends, who’s sharp as a tack, who still has the energy of a two-year-old, and whose coat gets brushed maybe twice a year. I’d put him up against anybody’s Golden that isn’t in the show ring, the ones that go to the groomer on a regular basis. Every vet checkup, the vet just shakes her head and says I must be doing something right.
It took a while to get here. It sounds expensive, and it was, at first. But at six-month volume, it costs less than upper-middle-class kibble now. It’s healthier than the “fresh stuff” in the pet store coolers that costs ten bucks a tube. And you get the satisfaction of knowing you’re doing it, you’re returning the love they give you so freely.
Oh, and I almost forgot, two very big wins both you and Rover get out of this.
Win one: ever feed them a raw carrot, then clean up the yard and notice the carrot’s still raw in the stool? That’s because a dog’s digestive system runs fast, for good reason, since bad stuff moves through before it can make them sick. But the downside is they don’t fully extract the nutrients from what they eat raw. Cooked food is easily digestible. Most of the nutrients actually get absorbed into their system instead of passing straight through.
Win two: the volume you feed them drops, a lot. Check the back of a kibble bag, how many cups, how many times a day, and how much poop are you picking up because of it? One quart of my stuff feeds the Jack and the Golden for two days. Yes, that’s not a typo. Two days. Breakfast is a half-cup of kibble for the Jack and a cup and a half for the Golden. And I still have to keep an eye on whether they’re getting overweight. If that doesn’t show you how little actual nutrition is in that bag, I don’t know what will.
It’s a win-win.
One last parting Trump bash: what kind of sicko would say they’re eating the dogs, with a straight face, in a presidential debate, no less?
